1 COMMENT

Sorry, but I find it incoherent. Both CNE and TSJ are rigged, ergo we need a constitutional assembly, but to achieve that we need an unrigged CNE (and TSJ, even if not mentioned in the video). Not to mention the heinous “poder originario”.
Visually, it is very good.

I think it should be done just the same because any way you spin it, we’re screwed.
We can say that the quicker alternative is removing them by force, or that the moral alternative is to wait it out, but the former means going up against the military -the only happy bunch- and if this year’s protests proved one thing, it’s that we’re not willing to be cannon fodder for so many thugs. Other countries have endured far worse for much longer than we have, so we shouldn’t expect this to crumble as long as there’s oil beneath our feet. Ergo, if we’re not ready to do the former and it’s pretty much useless to do the latter, we might as well play legal moves that’ll force the gov’t to get its hands dirty.

Speaking about the (obviously rigged) CNE, forgive my ignorance but isn’t there a way to get a guest institution, whether from another country or an international org to, run our elections parallel to the CNE, to draw both results and let the international comunity and the people here see if there is truly (definitely) a corrupt system in place.
I mean, there has been more than a fair bit of scandal surrounding Smartmatic, the company that makes the machines for the CNE voting logistic, also the governments credibility has been at an all time low this year thanks to everything that’s happened, HRW openly critized Venezuela’s UN Security Council bid.
That being said, I know plenty of people are going to say that the whole thing is going to get rigged with petro dollars, or that they can just get a country that’s a friend to the regime to run the election.
All I’m asking is is its possible, and if it is, we demand to have the entire cohort of international orgs supervising the shit of the election, and in getting another country to run the elections parallel the opposition get to choose, and I don’t mean get the USA, that would give chavismo endless amount of rant ammo, we have to get a country as far and unrelated to us as possible, say United Kingdom, say New Zealand, Say Switzerland, or Germany, even Spain (even doe the regime might still find some colonialist bullshit justification here as well). The requirements are a trustworthy electoral system and few, if no, economical/political interest in Venezuela.

Normally, international observers need an invitation from the elections authority to even look over its shoulder. In the past, even getting those has been tough. A government that’s spent heavily on an election system it can mess with is just obviously never going to willingly hand over control over the whole thing to those it can’t control.

Running a whole parallel election?! I don’t think you’re quite grasping how very, very far we are from having the kind of money, geographic reach, organizational chops and quality of leadership that it would take to pull something like this up. We’re really, *really* far from having any of those. We can’t even get enough properly trained witnesses in voting centers we *know* are problematic to even document the irregularities we already do know about.

“We can’t even get enough properly trained witnesses in voting centers we *know* are problematic to even document the irregularities we already do know about.”
So: you no longer believe what deputy Caldera told you in that interview? Thy name shall no longer be Saul but Paul.

When the voice over is not well modulated with a reasonable tempo that would make everyone understand, the video becomes a lost exercise. Would someone, anyone in political parties that wish to promote a line, realize that both audio and visuals need to excel in order to be successful.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet (you must not speak Spanish), the video says the Constitutional Assembly would be to undo chavista grips on power, a topic you completely ignore in your ad-hominem comment. (Then again, my previous post wasn’t about Thatcher’s economics ideas at all either, so I think English is not your native language either – perhaps Finnish?)

This post is about the video, not about the idea of the ANC. Of course, you don’t care to comment on the video, because you would like to deviate the conversation. That … is trolling.

Since you dislike our points of view so much, I’m glad we won’t be seeing you again around here. Have a good day.

My question is: who has the votes for a NAC? Really, does VP have more than the 15% of the electoral population to even collect the signatures *on its own*? Can it unite the entire opposition behind the idea? I don’t think so. And, honestly, if clean and fair elections were to be held, which political parties are the most likely winners? Mhm. So, isn’t the whole #2016 and #2019 strategy a let’s freaking build a solid majority?

It’s a well made cartoon (sound is terrible though) but a little infantile. Whoever made it evidently took time off from a regular job animating children cartoons, but whatever. I guess it mainly targets Venezuela’s ~7 million voters under 34 and this is the group most likely to take to the streets, and demand a referendum? Maybe the cool evil robot should look more like the “Ebola” virus for even greater effect. But jokes aside it is well made, no question.

Regarding the general strategy of calling for a constitutional assembly, seems like there is nothing to lose, or?? I suppose it’s a question of timing but the situation for the chavernment probably won’t be getting rosier anytime soon.

OT Can’t wait until Chavez junior starts work at the UN security council, that is gonna be fun (can you say “debacle”).

“Regarding the general strategy of calling for a constitutional assembly, seems like there is nothing to lose”

Repeat after me: lista tascon. Anything in venezuela that has to do with collecting signatures for something against the government will be forever haunted with the phantom of the infamous tascon list and its consequences… Its gonna take A LOT to convince people to overcome that detail :p

I thought of that too. In my case though, every single person in my family (that signed or otherwise) is still alive and in the country. Either way, protesting a dictatorial government is risky and this is a part of that.

The voice-over and images create a fairly coherent narrative of how a Constitutional Assembly will bring about the desired change. It present a fairly complex process in a straightforward and even simplistic manner – A kind of low tech video game-like solution for getting rid of the mechanical ‘red’ spider that now runs the show. Getting back to reality though…. Collecting signatures will be a tough one in a country where the current gov’t has sown the seeds of mistrust among Venezuelans, where there’s open censorship, and, even worse, self-censorship. Another consideration is that the gov’t will simply declare the collection of signatures illegal, as they have already hinted at. On the other hand, the VP initiative may get some momentum going for the opposition, and coupled with the MUD’s plan to take to the streets it could ignite something, hopefully non-violent.

To me watching that video reminds me of …1998…Wasn’t the Constituyente there going to change everything and save the country?

I don’t believe in Constituyentes, they have been the instruments of dictators since the beginning of our country: change the form of the State so that we can easily take over the State. It looks good when you are in the opposition but not so the other way around, and it creates precedent.

I like Leopoldo Lopez and MCM, but their call for the Constituyente is to me very wrong. We have to build a stable country, with stable institutions, and that is built with tough work, smart politics, lack of personalism, and a good opposition. The Constituyente is an easy way out and history has proven that what seemed to be an easy way out ends up being the longest route.

Whatever the problems there are with the current Constitution, the main problem today with Venezuela is not bad law emanating from a given Constitution, but with the lack of rule of law. Chavismo doesn’t follow the Constitution that Chavismo created. “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law:” that is the problem with Venezuela.

That being said, it appears that many Constitutions in Latin America – Venezuela is by no means the only country in the area with an affinity for Constitution of the Decade- are overly detailed, reading more like law than as principles for creating laws. Which only increases the desire to change Constitutions. Laws can be readily changed, usually with a majority vote of the legislature. Keep the Constitutions confined to principles, not laws, and you will have less desire to change Constitutions.
Recall when Evo rewrote the Constitution in Bolivia. He broke a deadlock with an easy solution. He effectively locked the oppo out of the building where the Constitutional Convention was meeting.

the video IS good and surprisingly coherent. I still don’t understand how people can believe that we can get out of this mess by *not* playing the game. If we want to “salir” and have any kind of broader domestic support or credibility, WE HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME and we have to beat them at it.

Before they even invoke a Constitutional Assembly they need to solve the issue with the CNE & TSJ. To do it backwards is just inviting the CA to be rigged. Because it may be unacceptable “inaceptable” but whether they accept it or not, if they get the CA ball rolling before the CNE & TSJ are cleaned then there won’t be any fair election and the opportunity would be lost.
So first prove that elections can be fair then call for a CA.

Also he says: “Pero no tengamos dudas en elecciones limpias ganaremos la Asamblea Nacional Constituyente”. He sounds very sure, just like they were sure of #LaSalida, but what are the basis of that affirmation? Polls, the latest elections? and what percentage is he expecting on votes and constituents?

There’s a basic confusion in VP’s proposal, built on a misreading of what happened in 1999, of why the 1958 regime collapsed when it did.

Entrenched regimes collapse when the people who would be called on to kill for them no longer believe in them enough to keep pulling triggers. When the authority of the powerful to order violence breaks down, or where the powerful are unsure whether their orders would be followed, and so refrain from emitting them.

In Venezuela in 1999, the puntofijo regime’s prestige had withered to such an extent that the institutions called upon to defend it just shirked the task. Cecilia Sosa’s famous phrase about the CSJ’s suicide encapsulates that dynamic beautifully. The regime shot itself in the head, to avoid being murdered. The regime shot itself in the head, because it didn’t believe the people it would need to call on to defend it would really do so.

The Constituyente didn’t cause the regime’s collapse in 1999. It was just the bureaucratic mechanism chosen to officialize the fact of the regime’s collapse, which was previous to it. Chávez fetishized it, talked about it in epic terms, and so now it’s become part of the political culture to fetishize it. But at bottom, it was an administrative footnote: the bureaucratic hassle it takes to officialize facts-on-the-ground that had come before.

My take on this is that the Opposition keeps looking for a constitutional manner to overthrow a regime that discarded the constitution a long time ago. No one seems to want to admit that “democracy” is broken and the institutions of state are no longer functioning independently. The sooner the Opposition understands and accepts this, the sooner they will be able to formulate rational strategies.

Secondly, I think the Opposition underestimates the current levels of dissatisfaction in the country at all socioeconomic levels. Just about anything could ignite the fire, such as what occurred in February and March. Yet, the Opposition seems averse to the use of “people power”. In fact, they seem to have a deep-seated distrust of the Venezuelan public. I truly do not understand why, since it is the only way possible to dislodge the regime on their terms.

Of course, if they just wait long enough, there is a good chance that the economy will simply implode from lack of foreign income and local production, causing the regime leaders to flee the country, having nothing left to steal. The risk of this strategy is that the current government could be replaced by a military junta that could use the remaining oil income to dig in and perpetuate themselves in power (like in Burma).

And will the people who will receive those orders be materially and organizationally capable of carrying them out?

No one should have any illusion about the current regime and its members from the top down, their utter depravity and complete disregard for moral norms of any kind. The answer to the first two questions are yes and yes, and it will remain yes and yes ’till the bitter end.

But for the third question, not so sure.

An army with one general for every 34 servicemen, an army for which corruption, extortion and trafficking are the main activities is not a very capable one. And it’s only getting more corrupt, more disorganized, more incompetent and more rotten from the inside everyday. Add the economic context, and large scale repression can quickly become very difficult to pull off.

I would not take for granted the first two questions. The generals may give the orders, but those orders need to be carried out by the junior officers and enlisted men. All of them have families and are well aware of the levels of discontent in the country.

They would all have to agree not follow those orders for it to work the way you think it would work, and that ain’t gonna happen. As soon as junior officer Pedro suggest to junior officer Juan that he might not follow those orders, and officer Juan comunicates this to his superior, officer Pedro is toast.

Besides, the government has enough money to keep happy even the lower ranked members of the military. There are only about 100.000 servicemen. That’s not so many for a country that still produces a lot of oil.

“And will the people who will receive those orders be materially and organizationally capable of carrying them out?”

It’s not that hard to do what they (would) have to do. Heck, look at the “colectivos”, they didn’t even need to kill anyone to wreak havoc during the protests. Just going around armed with guns in motorcycles and shooting at the buildings was enough. And they don’t even have any particular military training…